•Crude futures moved lower on Thursday, as the market seemed to be catching up with more bearish sentiment stemming from product builds in Wednesday's US stock data release. Moreover, a gloomier technical picture especially for WTI, combined with fears that the US economy is on its way into a recession, added to the downward move.

•"Crude futures are still structurally bullish because of the draws in US crude stocks yesterday and the inter-month spreads are remaining strong but I think the market is coming off on the back of weaker products futures and product demand, which was reflected in yesterday's build in US product stocks," a London-based trader said.

•The EIA reported that US crude stocks fell by 6.8 mil barrels to their lowest level since October 2004. A combination of a drop in imports and a 1.9% jump in refinery utilization to 91.3% led to the larger-than-expected drop in crude stocks. However, with distillates as well as gasoline output increasing even as US demand was falling, the result was a strong 5.3 mil barrel increase in gasoline stocks, while distillates built by 1.5 mil barrels. This led to a price correction to the downside in European morning trading on Thursday.

Updated: January 10, 2008